Way back I used to really enjoy the old Air Warrior. MS Combat Flight Sim 3 was pretty good too, but suffered from narrow choice of aircraft.
The best PC flight sim Ive ever played, and still do, is Combat Flight Simulator 2. Its an older game now but has a mission builder where you can create and fly your own missions. Its in the PTO and you can fly for either side. Its worth a try and you probably can get it for next to nothing.
I really liked the Tornado game too. It came with a map that was coverd in plastic so you could mark out the AAA and Sam sites with a marker and either avoid or destroy them.
Here is a link to a European Air War video. Keep in mind this was released in 1998
I loved that game along with Aces over Europe (and Falcon 3.0).
Has anyone ever got a Joystick to work with these games in DOSbox?
I agree. The virtual world was well done. The enemy AI was good. The missions were diverse and well simulated. The aircraft were well done and there were great hacks to make them even more realistic (or less, like a P-51 with 20mm cannon). The only thing lacking is graphics, but it was very good for its day and fast too on a mediocre PC.
Someone really needs to redo this with modern Graphics like they did for Tomb Raider and Halo anniversary editions.
With the Mission Builder you can fly in the ETO, MTO, actually anywhere in the World… You have to build thebases and targets, and download several different aircraft on both sides, but it’s fun… You can also download dozens of missions and campaign that others made…
Caught a P-61 stooging around it’s base on a maintenance hop… The AAA boys were napping too, but I did catch some groundfire on egress…
"Witwe ist Kaput… HORRIDO!!!
As the war dragged on into 1946, B-29s started showing up…
"Achtung! Dicke Autos!"
I used to love Falcon 3.0, an F-16 sim. It also let you plan missions, waypoints, loadouts, other assets and wingmen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_(video_game_series)
Now they have a free version called Free Falcon 5.0
With IL-2 Sturmovik - there are 3 engines
The Original IL-2 evolved into the Forgotten battle series and now we have the “Cliffs of Dover”
The Forgotten Battles series ended with 1946. It has a great battle generating system and the campaign game for offline is very good. The campaign is not a step ladder campaign, but a dynamic one. I play with automatic victory on. This means whatever happens in the battle, that is it you don’t have to complete the mission, because sometimes its just impossible. Here’s an example I had, my finnish fighter sqadron of B-331 Buffaloes were supposed to escort Blenheims on a raid on Russian positions. We set up for take off, and 3 Russian fighters come in to strafe us. We go up at them and end up using up all of my ammo. No way am I going up and continue a mission into enemy territory unarmed. I end the mission there. There are times that you receive damage by flak or enemy aircraft to your oil or coolant. You could continue the mission and be captured or run for home. I have had it where the engine conks out and I have to make a gliding wheels up landing just inside my lines, barely.
I f you want to make a new save with the same squadron and period, you will fly a diferent series of missions. the campaigns are new every time you replay them. With the Finnish fighter Squadrons, you have the choice of starting with the Buffalo, Gladiator, FIAT G.50 and Hurricane (maybe also H-75 Hawk), the mid transition is to Buffaloes, but the final tranistion is to Bf-109G’s.
Even with the problems with Cliffs of Dover, its a different game from Forgotten Battles. In IL-2 FB you have a host of choices for aircraft and subtypes (200 to 300 flyable aircraft and subtypes including many paper jet fighters). For example, I was using a German Fighter squadron on the Eastern Front, I started in Bf-109 E-4, transitioned into the E-7, the F series, then the G series eding up defending Berlin in Me-262’s. some squadrons start off with 109’s and then follow the Fw-190 series. When I say series, that is what I mean, you’ll get a Bf-109 F-2 then get an F-4, gen up to a G-2, etc. Others are fighter bomber squadrons and tranistion to the FW-190 F series from the Bf 109’s. You can fly Stukas, Surmoviks and Ju-88’s in the campaigns as well. The game physics allow you to dive, glide or even skip bomb. There is a short campaign for Beaufighters in the Pacific and you do get torpedoes. There is a USAAF version of this campaign with the A-20.
For those who like the early German jet and rocket aircraft, the Me-262, Me-163 and the He-162 are part of the basic IL-2 FB flyable aircraft including the Russian Bi-1. Hey, it did fly for real. But the 1946 expansion gives you some fanatsy planes. The aircraft supplied spans most of the warring nations, with the French aircraft only being absent. The Romanian IAR-80/81 is there, the Polish PZL P-11, Italian CR.42, Fokker DXXI, etc. are other examples of flyables. The developers Maddox games added all of these aircraft, not allowing for individuals to add their own aircraft. The flight characteristics are excellent, Don’t take a P-38 into a steep dive, you will not make it out of it.
I have enjoyed this series since its inception. Hopefully, the bugs can get out of Cliffs of Dover, but Forgotten Battles is still a top notch product.
Mike T.
I bought wings of prey, the most realistic ww2 dogfight game yet too come. One problem… my graphics / video card wasn’t good enough.
Ive also got heroes of the pacific on PS2.
Ive got heroes over europe for PC, but I can get it too work. My uncle workings in IT so he’s going to get it working.
I’ll just stick with BF1942 until I can get heroes over europe working. The games not too bad, it’s got a few planes in it. Spitfire, ME109, JU88, B17, P-51, JU87, Zero, Val, SBD, Corsair, YAK-9.
Helps if you have a cat that’s a good observer…
I did some flying as an exchange pilot with the IJAAF too… They needed help with the DB-601 engnes in the Tonys, so I went and showed them how to wring the best peformance from them…
I also flew a suitably-marked Zeke…
If you want a good modern combat sim check out FreeFalcon 5. Just google it. It was built off of Falcon 4.0. There are tons of flyable aircraft and usable weapons. Also there are several different theaters with dynamic campaigns.
Lol, did you find that pic on the net?
I’ve seen that zero in FW190 markings before. I’ll try and video a dogfight agianst real people over the net. But my ping is very high making it extremely hard to shoot them down.
You can really only damage them if your on their six and fire directly into their tail. I’ll try and find a good server, most are modded to the extreme extend of flying battleships and aircraft carriers.
Nope… Those screenshots are all mine… Downloaded all my planes from various sites that support CFS2. I’ve got it installed multiple times, each instal is a separate game, PTO, MTO, ETO, Papua New Guinea, N.Africa, and range from the the Invasion of Poland through 1947… So far, I’ve downloaded around 400 different aircraft, although 99 in the max number you can have in your game’s “hangar”…
Yeah, I got it from from the downloads section at simcombat.com
I only fly on-line in a dedicated server with a virtual Luftwaffe unit… No mods allowed, the server will kick you out if you change anything in the flight/damage models…
Silly Ami… Thought he could out-climb me in a P-39…
Here’s the view from inside my Tony…
He blew it trying to pull into an Immelmann, but he didn’t have the energy… He bled off his airspeed, stalled, and dropped, nose down… I kicked the rudder around and got on his tail immediately, then blew him all over 7-Mile at Port Moresby…
BF1942, is notorious for its modding. I do like some mods like all the planes being twice as fast etc.
What I meant was the pic of the cat, is it your cat?
My cat chases the mouse arrow around the screen, and leaves fur in my model plane boxes? [:|]
You can fly in WW1 campaigns too… Here’s my personal D VII…
Yeah, that’s me & Murphy, my Wingcat…
Somebody mentioned Falcon 3.0 earlier, that was a great PC game for the time, as was Combat Flight Sim Europe.
Brings me to wonder, what with the HUGE advances in software design etc., seems a shame most WWII flight sims are kind of… punky, you know just not really up to the snuff, or is it just me?
Good brief on the IL-2 series, Mike. I agree, Forgotten battles is a the best. Since this game was written by Russians, ironically [:)], the Russian planes fly the best . The La-7 and Yak-3, particularly. They did well with the 109’s, even including the K-4. The Dora is a bit unstable, good only for boom and zoom. The P-51 flies like a brick, which is disconcerting.
1946 is pretty cool, but a lot of moderators don’t like the jets in their dogfights. Jet on jet dogfights there are fantastic, however. Looks like I’ll wait a while to get Cliffs of Dover and get spun up again.
Here are some screen shots from IL-2 FB, the last is a cockpit shot of the Do-339:
Mike T.